Last week, a massive cargo ship carrying luxury cars, including several Porsches, caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean, forcing the crew of 22 to flee.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a "large number" of the cars are electric, which is complicating firefighting efforts — though it's still unclear whether their lithium-ion batteries were the source of the fire.
"The cars are electric," a spokeswoman with salvage company Royal Boskalis Westminster NV told the publication. "Part of the fire is the batteries that are still burning."
The revelation, which is yet another setback for the already struggling automobile sector, demonstrates how difficult it is to transport large, heavy objects and highly flammable batteries comes with some inherent risks, a pertinent topic given the exponential rise of the EV.
Write-Off
The Felicity Ace, a big cargo ship, was delivering about 4,000 vehicles from Germany to the United States, including 1,100 Porsches and 189 Bentleys. The Volkswagen Group, Porsche's parent business, produces electric premium automobiles such as the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron, and VW ID.4.
However, the ship has been floating and on fire off the coast of the Azores islands in the Atlantic since the crew abandoned ship.
"The fire is still burning, albeit it has lessened in intensity," Joo Manuel Mendes Cabeças, an Azores port commander, told the Wall Street Journal. "Everything, or nearly everything, is expected to have burnt."
Ocean-ready tug boats are already en route to the Felicity Ace to tow the ship to safety once the raging inferno has been extinguished.
